


These Polaroids Are Talking

by CharlieDemandsCoffee



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: AU, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Trans Character, trans!Patrick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-13
Updated: 2017-06-22
Packaged: 2018-11-12 23:42:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieDemandsCoffee/pseuds/CharlieDemandsCoffee
Summary: Pete and Patrick have always been PeteandPatrick, even before Patrick existed at all.





	1. Chicago Rain-2001

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own FOB. 
> 
> I am a transgender man myself and I'm writing from my own experiences. I may use terms that not every trans person uses.  
> I may be comfortable with parts of my body, or situations that other trans people are not.  
> I do not ever claim to speak for every trans experience.
> 
> I wanted to work my "snapshot fic" muscles, so here's the result.

**_2001_ **

"Hey!" 

Patrick shifts to avoid the pencil he knows Pete is going to lob at him. He hears it clatter against the wall behind his bed, fixes Pete with a glare. 

"What?"

"Were you, like, even listening to me?" 

"Of course I was listening to you," Patrick mumbles, scratching out a line of music he's scribbled in his notebook.

Rain is pattering softly against the windowpane, thunder starting to rumble in the distance. It would be serene without Pete's running commentary for the past half-hour. 

Pete huffs and Patrick keeps staring at the page in his lap, just to annoy him a little. He knows it's pretty much impossible to tune Pete out, and he knows Pete knows too, since he uses it to his advantage more often than he should. 

"And?"

"I don't know," Patrick says, meeting Pete's eyes, reveling a little in the fact that he looks so irritated, "I'm not sure if a B-minor would work there, you know?" 

Pete uncrosses his legs and scrambles up from the floor to flop down close to Patrick on the bed. They press hip to thigh.

Pete's so warm he's radiating heat through Patrick's jeans. Patrick is suddenly hyper-aware of the fact that he isn't wearing his binder, opting for a sweater instead. He's not well-endowed in that area, thank God, and he knows Pete doesn't care. He tries to shake off the feeling. 

"But it might work, like, here," Pete says, tracing his finger across the second line in the bridge. 

Patrick watches where Pete's fingertip is resting, considering, and realizes that Pete is right. Patrick makes a show of thinking about it, feeling Pete's eyes on him like a weight. He finally takes pity on Pete when he starts squirming a little, erasing the line and starting to transpose. 

Patrick bites his cheek against a smirk at Pete's small sound of victory. Ever since he and Pete had started writing music together, they both found that they liked to rattle each other occasionally. Pete called it "fuel for the creative fire". Patrick had a sneaking suspicion Pete just liked to best Patrick every chance he got. Patrick went with it mostly; Pete was a force of nature. 

Pete gets up, brushing Patrick's leg on his way to dig into the gigantic bag of Doritos on the desk. Patrick finishes writing the last notes, scratching his collarbone with the end of his pencil.

Pete's chewing quietly, shaking out the stiffness of his legs as he moves around the room, holding the bag. Patrick keeps writing, Pete's shadow looming over him as he holds a chip out. Patrick lets Pete feed it to him without looking up from his notes. 

"Joe's roommate's leaving a week early," Pete announces around a mouthful of chip, "We'll have a place to, like, practice again." 

Joe's roommate hated noise, so most of the time when he was here for the college semester, their band was down the only good space they had for practice. Joe reclaimed it during the summers when his roommate was gone visiting his parents in Connecticut.

Patrick hadn't liked the guy the second he met him, all snooty in his stupid pastel polo. Patrick had pulled Joe aside to ask why he was rooming with him in the first place. 

"He's anal-retentive, so I figured he wouldn't drive me nuts with his mess like the last guy," Joe had shrugged.

Joe was incredibly clean and organized. He also had a high-tolerance for assholes, so the guy didn't bother him that much.

Patrick hoped some of Joe's neatness would rub off on him the longer he hung out with Joe, but no such luck. Patrick casts a gaze at the pile of dirty laundry he has on his desk chair, the layer of dust on his bookshelves.

Pete's in the center of the room, completing the picture of disarray. Patrick studies the way Pete's lips move while he chews. He's carefully selecting his next chip, fingers dusty orange. 

"Awesome," Patrick replies, closing his notebook and stretching his arms overhead. Pete licks the dust off his fingers, smiling. Patrick admires how wide his hands are, how the muscles in his arms shift as he seeks out another chip.

Patrick's struck with jealousy for probably the millionth time. He sweeps his gaze over Pete's narrow hips, broad shoulders. He's slim, defined, whereas Patrick is soft, with curves in all the wrong places, no definition to his body. His female relatives had always told him he was "so pretty", and boy, if _that_ didn't weigh on him all the time. 

And sure, objectively, Pete was "pretty" too, with his feathery black hair and whiskey-brown eyes he liked to line in makeup. But he was all boy, no doubt about it. Patrick was tired of people doubting the fact that he was too. 

Patrick hears keys jingling in the lock, the sounds of his mother coming in from work. Pete sets the chips down, strides over to open the bedroom door. 

"Patricia!" his mother calls up the stairs, and Patrick swallows against the bile rising in his throat.

He had come out to her fairly recently. She had taken it okay, said she would try her hardest to make him comfortable. Patrick knows she's bound to mess up once in a while, but it still hurts. He sees Pete shoot him a sympathetic look out of the corner of his eye. 

"Up here mom!" Patrick yells back, "Pete's here too!" 

He hears plastic bags being set on the counter downstairs. She likes Pete well enough to feed him whenever he's over, which is more often than not, but she doesn't trust him very much.  

"Hi Pete! Remember, keep the door open!" his mom shouts, bustling around, "Dinner's at seven!" 

Patrick shakes his head, rolling his eyes. Pete smirks, walking over to perch himself at the end of Patrick's bed. 

"You know she, like, reminds you every time," Pete says in a quiet voice, "It's kind of funny." 

"It's annoying is what it is," Patrick replies, feeling his face heating up, "I don't know what she's, like, afraid will happen." 

Pete looks thoughtful for a minute, playfully throwing a balled-up piece of paper at Patrick. His mouth is twitching against a grin.

"Probably that I'm gonna steal her little boy's virtue," Pete says seriously.  

Pete finally cracks, braying with laughter when Patrick pushes him. 

 


	2. Strawberry Pop Rocks-1999, 2003

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spot the "Soul Punk" reference :)

_**1999** _

Pete was not the first person Patrick came out to. His mother wasn't even the first, though he had told her right after. 

Allie had been the first. She was dark haired, petite, big brown eyes, everything Patrick had wished he could be for everyone else at the time.

He had watched her spritz perfume on her neck, wandering around her bedroom in her Looney Toons pajama shorts, and thought how she would be the perfect daughter for his mother. She seemed so comfortable in her femininity, teasing Patrick about his musical tastes while she painted her toenails electric blue.

She had been his friend for a long time. She was a few classes above him, almost eighteen now, but she still hung out with him. And there he was, having a normal sleepover with her like always, talking about the things he knew girls talked about with practiced ease, and he couldn't stop thinking about the way her thighs parted when she bent to refill her brush.

He laughed with her about how "hot" Joseph Gordon Levitt was, sneaking peeks at the flashes of pink panties she was giving him with each movement. He had curled in on himself, listened to her giggle about a TV show she was into, and he had been compelled. 

"Allie?" he started, feeling cautiously into that dark place inside him, knowing he didn't have the words for it, but needing to say it anyway. She had been with him through everything. There was no way she wouldn't at least hear him out. 

"Yeah?" 

"What do you think _I'd_ look like as a um, boy?" 

She had laughed, capping her nail polish and putting it on her nightstand. Patrick had felt his lower back sweating. 

"If you were a boy," she said, "You'd be really cute. Like, innocent-looking." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she had replied, her face changing for a moment as she slid over to him, backing him against the headboard. She had a teasing look in her eyes, like this was a big joke to her. 

"I might even want to kiss you, if you were a boy," she whispered, her breath fanning out over Patrick's face, smelling like the Strawberry Pop Rocks they had earlier.

And she had leaned over, kissed him with confidence, huffing out through her nose. He had frozen, clammy hands hovering near her shoulders, eyes still open on her blurry image. 

The kiss had ended before he could even think about whether he should kiss back or not. She had pulled away, throwing back her head with laughter, and something about the way her eyes crinkled made Patrick blurt out the words. 

"I think I might be a boy." 

Allie's laughter had cut off, leaving a ringing silence behind. Patrick had looked at the sewing kit on her desk, wishing he knew how to sew so he could take the needle to his mouth and never talk again. 

"What?" 

"I-I um," Patrick stammered, his voice warbling. He had hid his face in his hands.

"That's just..." Allie said, shaking her head, "You're joking right? Like, what are you even talking about?"

She looked confused, upset even. The room was stuffy, her sweet pea perfume nearly choking him. 

"I just, I dunno. It's just, like, the way I feel, you know?"

"No. I don't," she said, her eyes hard. They were quiet for a moment.

"Please just...don't hate me," Patrick had mumbled weakly. 

"Trish," Allie snapped, leaning away from him, "You can't, like, just _be_ a boy." 

Patrick had just stared at her, through her, like she wasn't even there. She had looked at him with such disgust that he had started gathering his things before she could say anything else. In the end, she had made some excuse about her mom coming home soon, how she had to be up tomorrow early to go to church. Patrick had nodded, walking to the front door numbly. 

It had taken him walking two blocks back home before he realized she hadn't said she wasn't going to hate him. 

* * *

**_2003_ **

"Stop, dude, you're gonna rip it," Pete says, snatching the letter out of Patrick's hand. 

The waiting room isn't packed, but Patrick feels claustrophobic. His sweat had warped the therapist's letter. He clutches the arm rests on the chair instead, digging his nails into the leather. 

A fizzing noise distracts him, and he looks over to see Pete shaking the contents of a bag into his mouth.

"Are you seriously eating candy right now?" Patrick asks, eyeing Pete's relaxed body language and deciding he wants to throttle him. 

"Hell yeah," Pete replies, shaking the bag in Patrick's face, "Pop Rocks are, like, addictive." 

His breath smells like strawberry sugar, and Patrick closes his eyes against the memories that flood back to him, feeling queasy. In comparison to Allie (her mom had called his mom to tell her what he said, forcing him to come out to his mother) Pete had reacted wonderfully. Or non-reacted. 

Patrick had blurted it out when Pete had found his binder. He had been in Patrick's house for the first time, raiding Patrick's closet, convinced that he had stolen his Converse. Pete had picked the binder up and just held it out in question. Patrick had told him everything, Pete listening patiently for once, and at the end Patrick had braced himself in the silence, wondering who he was going to write songs with now. 

"Okay." 

Patrick had let out a breath he didn't even know he was holding. 

"Okay?" 

"Yeah," Pete had shrugged, "I mean, if you say you're Patrick, then you're Patrick. I don't care who you were born as." 

It had felt a little anticlimactic, and Patrick had been pretty annoyed with Pete for a few days after, even though he knew that was stupid. Patrick had waited, watching Pete for any sign of doubt, and when there wasn't any, he had gradually relaxed. 

"Patricia?" the nurse calls from the doorway, and Patrick casts a panicked glance at Pete before rising from his chair. Patrick grabs the letter from Pete, stopping when Pete catches his wrist. 

"I'll be out here," he says, letting go as Patrick nods.

He knows Pete can't really come back with him (he'd been told by the check in counter that the clinic's policy was "immediate family only") but he doesn't want to go alone. The nurse leads him back, weighing him before she takes his vitals in another small room. It has a poster of teddy bears surrounding a poem about grief.

She tells him the doctor will be in shortly, and snaps the door closed behind her. He knows he's been waiting a long time to start hormones, and that he should be excited, but he can't bring himself to be. 

The doctor comes in a while later, studying Patrick over her horn-rimmed glasses, before checking the chart in her hands. She asks him how his day is, making small talk while she takes the letter from him to read it over. She hands him a huge stack of papers, telling him sternly that they use "informed consent" here. 

"We'll do the first shot here, and I'll show you how to do it. We prefer for patients like you do be able to do these at home," she says, scrubbing up at the sink and putting her equipment on the silver tray next to the bed. 

"Typical injection areas are the buttocks and upper-thighs," she says, filling the needle from the little vial of yellowish liquid. She tells Patrick to raise his shorts (a pair of Pete's basketball ones, since he didn't have any), and she shows him where to inject on his leg, telling him about the pinch versus pull-taut method. 

"Okay," she says, wiping his skin with an alcohol pad and positioning the needle at the skin of his thigh, "You're going to feel a little pinch." 

Patrick looks away, staring at the teddy bear poster. He realizes they all look a little scary actually, and then he feels the needle in his leg, cold and stinging. She does it quickly, reeling off the importance of aspirating his needles each time, and Patrick thinks he can almost feel the testosterone flowing into his muscle. It might just be the relief. 

"All done," she announces with a clipped smile, throwing the needle into the bio-hazard box on the wall and snapping off her gloves. She has him hold a little pad of gauze to the mark for a few seconds before she covers it with a band-aid. 

Before he can really comprehend what happened, she's leading him down the hallway to the checkout desk, telling him that all the information is in his packet if he forgot anything she told him. She softens a little at the doorway, wishes him luck, and departs for the back office. 

Pete spots him and gets up swiftly, jogging to meet Patrick at the door. 

"How'd it go?" Pete asks, taking the packet from Patrick and leafing through it, "Wow, this is, like, one of my textbooks." 

Patrick chuckles, feeling his stomach flip. He feels victorious. 

It's chilly outside, the crinkly leaves on the trees betraying an early winter despite the bright sunshine. Patrick takes a moment to watch them fluttering as they walk to Pete's car. This time of year was really beautiful. Patrick doesn't think he's ever really appreciated it before. They get in Pete's car, and they're halfway out of the parking lot when Patrick notices his hands have stopped shaking. 

"First shot down," Patrick says quietly. He hears Pete let out a shaky breath. 

"What?" Patrick questions, watching Pete run a hand through his hair. 

"I think I was, like, more nervous than you were," Pete admits, smiling a little. Patrick laughs at that, feels the tension in his chest release. He watches Pete's hands tapping out a little beat on the open window pane.

"I'm just glad you were there, you know?" Patrick says, fiddling with the packet in his lap, "Sorry you had to miss work." 

"Work's just work. I wasn't gonna let you go alone," Pete replies in a strange voice. He adjusts his rear-view mirror, chewing his bottom lip.

Patrick watches the traffic light flick to green, turning his head to hide his smile.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: My doctor's office actually had that teddy bear poster.  
> Not so fun fact: The Allie scene is based off of something that actually happened to me. I never spoke with my friend again after that. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has supported this fic so far!


	3. Cocoon-2004

_**2004** _

"What are you staring at?" Patrick asks. 

They're traipsing down the highway to Warped, the first of their five-day stint. Their album is taking off, and that should feel like success. 

It feels hot, actually.

The van is begging for death underneath them. It has serious air issues, so the heat is on full blast in the middle of summer to get them to the speed limit. Patrick's binder is sticking to his skin, chafing every time he moves. 

"You've just, like, changed so much dude," Pete says, scratching the back of his neck. 

Patrick huffs a laugh, "I sure hope so. It's been a year, you know?"

"No, I mean yeah _that_ but you also just seem...happier."

"Oh. Well, I am." 

Pete smiles at him, his eyes taking in Patrick's frame. 

"I dunno, he still seems pretty cranky to me," Joe pipes up from the front seat, stretching his legs out on the dash. 

"You try having swamp-tits for three hours and see how nice you are," Patrick shoots back.

Andy lets out a bark of laughter from the driver's seat. They had picked Andy up around the same time Patrick was at his six-month mark on testosterone. Andy was wild looking, a straight-edge, vegan contrast to the rest of them. He had been incredibly understanding too, saying somewhat ominously that "bodies didn't matter" when Patrick told him. He could drum like hell, too, and was quickly proving his worth. 

They were all improving, feeling and sounding like a real band now. Patrick's just grateful he can sing again. His voice isn't perfect, but he's able to at least make it through the songs without cracking. The changes are weird, but good. Even the wispy facial hair pleased him. He could do without the spikes to his libido, though.

He blames Pete for his sore junk entirely. 

Pete likes to bring girls into the van or rooms they're squatting in, attempts to fuck them quietly while everyone else is sleeping. It's not like Patrick isn't used to hearing the guys in intimate moments, being crammed in with them all the time, but he's not sure why Pete insists on running his mouth the whole time. 

Patrick will get hard listening to the girls panting, to Pete whispering that it "feels so good" and that they're "so tight" and pretty soon Patrick is biting down on his fist, coming with his hand down his pants. Patrick tries not to think about it, it's not like he can make Pete stop.

He's tried, hissing at him to shut up once, quiet enough so the girl didn't hear him, but that only made Pete get louder out of spite. He had even made eye-contact with Patrick, staring mischievously over the girl's shoulder, like they were sharing a secret he hadn't told Patrick about. He had only quieted down when Patrick looked away first, laying back down to face away from Pete. 

"Twelve miles left," Andy comments, shifting in his seat.

Patrick can hear his thighs stick to the leather. Joe has his window down, but it's just making the muggy air swirl around more. Patrick leans back in his seat, watches Pete scribbling in his notebook across from him, hoodie open, sweat beading on his chest. 

A drop skitters its way down Pete's neck, pooling just below his pectoral, and Patrick swallows, fiddles with the hem of his T-shirt. Pete glances up, catches Patrick watching him.

His expression changes. He suddenly reaches behind him to slip the hoodie off, tossing it on the seat. He smirks and leans back, opening his legs shamelessly, giving Patrick a good view of him. Patrick finally tears his eyes away, looking out the window. The highway is a blur under them, the distance is hazy. 

Twelve miles to go, and August has never seemed hotter. 

 


	4. Dusty Worship-2006

**_2006_ **

"Okay, so, explain to me why that line won't work there," Pete snaps his pen against the paper, and his tone immediately irritates Patrick.

They had been having this same argument for the past hour or so, and Patrick felt a headache threatening at the back of his head. It didn't help that he was at the end of his shot cycle, already irritable from low testosterone. 

"I'm the singer, okay?" Patrick says, trying to keep his voice calm, "And I do need to breathe at some point." 

Pete chews the inside of his cheek, huffing a little through his nose.

"I mean, I guess we can scrap it-"

"I didn't say that. I'll keep it, just, like, not for this song, you know?"

Pete nods, his shoulders relaxing where they're pressed against Patrick's. He can feel Pete's breathing slowing down. 

"I'm not, like, rejecting it," Patrick says, and Pete avoids his eyes, "I'm just saying it has to work for me too. Especially if we're gonna top _Cork Tree_." 

"I know that," Pete says, studying his nails, covered in chipped black polish. 

Patrick sighs, rubs a hand over the back of his neck, shifts on his creaky stool. The studio is uncharacteristicly quiet. Everyone is either on phones or rendering audio.

"It's like a damn church in here," Patrick whispers, his breath stirring the dust floating in the sunlight from the window. 

"Give me your arm," Pete says suddenly. 

Patrick's brow furrows, but he sticks his arm out. Pete grips it and rolls the sleeve of his hoodie up. Patrick watches Pete take a felt-tip pen from his pocket, his hair falling in his eyes as he leans over and writes. He's quick and gentle, and when he pulls back he's grinning. 

Patrick turns his arm to make out the lyrics scrawled on his skin. 

_I'm a preacher, sweating in the pew  
For the salvation I'm bringing you_

Patrick watches the ink bleeding out into the lines of his arm, and he feels his mouth quirking. 

"Okay," he nods, "Okay, that might work, actually." 

Pete leans toward Patrick, pecking him on the cheek before he pulls out his notebook to write.

Patrick watches him, all hunched over, tapping his foot against the stool to a beat only he can hear, and he feels that old warmth spread across his chest. 

They were working more efficiently together, finding a good balance in Pete's words and Patrick's notes. It felt like actual work now, with interviews and photoshoots and shows. It felt real, and it scared the hell out of Patrick. 

Everything was riding on them, and they had to top "Cork Tree". Between Pete's hospital incident and Patrick having to take time off for top surgery, Patrick almost envied the nice year the album was having without them. 

Patrick was relieved he could finally expand his chest and make it through the shows without wanting to pass out, but that just added to the pressure of how good he had to be now. 

Granted, most of the frontman pressure had fallen to Pete. Patrick's lifestyle had combined with the testosterone and granted him a few extra pounds, and that plus his natural need for privacy made him uninteresting to anyone with a shutter. 

Unfortunately, the press had latched onto Pete's every move, labeling him everything horrible in the book. Patrick couldn't stand it, especially when Pete would beam at him and say it didn't bother him. He hates when Pete lies. 

Patrick pulls at the front of his shirt, an old habit left over, but serving a different purpose now. He had spent so long imagining how his body would look once the testosterone took effect, and he was deeply disappointed that he ended up looking nothing like David Beckham. 

"You look fine, you know?" 

Patrick turns to eye Pete, watches him tap his pen against his leg while he thinks. 

"Yeah," Patrick huffs out a laugh, "I'm a real stud-muffin." 

"Hey, I'd do you," Pete replied, eyes still fixed on his page, but he's biting his lip to hide a smile.

"You'd do anyone," Patrick says offhandedly, leaning over to see what Pete's writing. Pete turns and the look on his face makes Patrick freeze. Pete rakes his eyes down Patrick's body. 

"Not anyone," Pete says seriously, and Patrick feels a bead of sweat roll down his spine. He searches Pete's eyes, and his stomach flutters at the calm determination he sees there. 

"What?" Patrick stammers, his voice low even though no one is paying attention to them. 

Pete leans, turns his head to press an achingly gentle kiss to the corner of Patrick's lips, pulling back before Patrick can react. 

"Not anyone," Pete whispers, abruptly turning back to his page to scribble. Patrick watches his knuckles, lets the weight of that sink into his chest. 

It feels warm, and familiar, and Patrick is surprised to realize that it's not new. 

Not at all. 


End file.
